'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

Those lines might have been written by Thomas Hardy. They express not
merely his view of life, but his faith in the healing power of the
bitter herb of pessimism. But we should remember that _A Shropshire
Lad_ was published before the first volume of Mr. Hardy's verse
appeared, and that the lyrical element displayed is natural rather
than acquired.

Though at the time of its publication the author was thirty-six years
old, many of the poems must have been written in the twenties. The
style is mature, but the constant dwelling on death and the grave is a
mark of youth. Young poets love to write about death, because its
contrast to their present condition forms a romantic tragedy, sharply
dramatic and yet instinctively felt to be remote. Tennyson's first
volume is full of the details of dissolution, the falling jaw, the
eye-balls fixing, the sharp-headed worm. Aged poets do not usually
write in this manner, because death seems more realistic than
romantic. It is a fact rather than an idea. When a young poet is
obsessed with the idea of death, it is a sign, not of morbidity, but
of normality.